This link has been bookmarked by 53 people . It was first bookmarked on 06 Oct 2007, by Erin the Librarian.
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David BurtHistory Magazine
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Melinda WrightSurvivor - the history of the library
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THE COLLECTION OF written knowledge in some sort of repository is a practice as old as civilization itself. About 30,000 clay tablets found in ancient Mesopotamia date back more than 5,000 years.
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Founded circa 300bc, the Great Library of Alexandria was the most famed literary repository of the ancient world.
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Aristotle's disciple Demetrius of Phalerum was on hand to answer with the latest count. After all, it was Demetrius who suggested setting up a universal library to hold copies of all the books in the world.
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The library's lofty goal was to collect a half-million scrolls and the Ptolemies took serious steps to accomplish it. Ptolemy I, for example, composed a letter to all the sovereigns and governors he knew, imploring them "not to hesitate to send him" works by authors of every kind.
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At its height, the library held nearly 750,000 scrolls. There must have been duplicates since there weren't that many works.
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Much of what is now considered to be literary scholarship began in the Alexandria Library. Funds from the royal treasury paid the chief librarian and his scholarly staff. Physically, books were not what we think of today, but rather scrolls, mostly made of papyrus, but sometimes of leather. They were kept in pigeonholes with titles written on wooden tags hung from their outer ends.
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Fires and depredations during the Roman period gradually destroyed the Library. When Julius Caesar occupied Alexandria in 48bc, Cleopatra urged him to help himself to the books. Obliging, he shipped tens of thousands to Rome. Marc Antony was rumored to have given Cleopatra the 200,000-scroll collection of rival library Pergamum to replace Alexandria's losses.
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Thanks to the Great Library, Alexandria assumed its position as the intellectual capital of the world and provided a model for other libraries to follow.
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Julius Caesar dreamed of establishing a public library in Rome, but his vision was cut short by his assassination. After Caesar's death, Asinius Pollio acquired the requisite funds to make the dream a reality. The library was divided into two sections - one for Greek and one for Latin, serving as a model for subsequent Roman libraries.
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In the early 500s in Egypt, a man named Pachomius established a monastery and insisted on literacy among his monks.
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Throughout the rest of the eastern empire, monastic communities emerged with small and mostly theological libraries.
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Even though libraries disappeared in the western empire due to invasion, lack of funds, and lack of interest, monasticism gave rise to an explosion of learning.
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The Benedictines created libraries and the scriptorium became sacred. It soon became customary for monasteries to lend to other monasteries, giving birth to the inter-library loan.
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Gutenberg's movable type innovation in the 1400s revolutionized bookmaking. Printed books replaced handwritten manuscripts and were placed on open shelves.
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Once Parliament passed the Public Library Act in 1850, libraries began to spread throughout the nation.
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THE COLLECTION OF written knowledge in some sort of repository is a practice as old as civilization itself. About 30,000 clay tablets found in ancient Mesopotamia date back more than 5,000 years. Archaelogists have uncovered papyrus scrolls from 1300-1200bc in the ancient Egyptian cities of Amarna and Thebes and thousands of clay tablets in the palace of King Sennacherib, Assyrian ruler from 704-681bc, at Nineveh, his capital city. More evidence turned up with the discovery of the personal collection of Sennacherib's grandson, King Ashurbanipal.
The name for the repository eventually became the library. Whether private or public, the library has been founded, built, destroyed and rebuilt. The library, often championed, has been a survivor throughout its long history and serves as a testament to the thirst for knowledge. -
Though the public library first appeared by the fourth century bc, the private library was more prevalent. Aristotle, for instance, amassed a large private collection. Ancient geographer Strabo said Aristotle "was the first to have put together a collection of books and to have taught the kings in Egypt how to arrange a library."
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Erin the LibrarianA colorful magazine describing how our ancestors lived.
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12 Feb 07
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17 Oct 06
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